To be worried about dd being behind?

[Bluerainbow86]

Dd is 6 in the new year and in year one. She was doing ok last year, before the second lockdown and time out of school. She also had periods of isolation. She wouldn’t really do much with me and she’s more or less where she was at this point last year.
She is just starting yellow band reading, but they are HARD. She doesn’t seem to retain the tricky words very well and she’s still not very interested. Her writing is ok ish but her handwriting is dreadful. Maths has never been a strong point.
I know it’s a marathon and not a sprint but I am worried. Having taught year 1 my experience is that in general if they are behind and struggling now it doesn’t get much better as they get older.

I understand your anxiety, we want our children to have the best start. But she’s 5 years old. You cannot write her off at age 5! Of course children start and progress at different levels, her giving it a go and enjoying it is far more important than anything else right now.

“ Having taught year 1 my experience is that in general if they are behind and struggling now it doesn’t get much better as they get older.”

Having taught year 2 my experience is the opposite, I’ve seen a lot of children come up massively behind and then suddenly something just clicks with their reading and writing around spring 1/2 (obviously lockdown has effected this timetable so it may well be later than that now). Especially summer born boys but it’s pretty common across the board. She may well have ongoing difficulties but it’s definitely not guaranteed! She may well just not be ready yet.

Of the 3 people I know who were behind in school at that age, 2 caught up and ended up doing really well academically, and one had undiagnosed dyslexia and still struggles with academic things as an adult. It might be worth speaking to the SENCO to see if they think there might be an underlying issue like dyslexia otherwise try and relax.

Does she have strengths in other areas? Academics are not the be all and end all. If your child is musical, sociable, artistic, caring, brave, sporty, fun, a brilliant dancer or a future comedian, try and encourage the other skills. For some academics will always be a slog, but having a passion can incentivise them to work hard at school to Pursue their dream of being a ballet dancer or firefighter or footballer or whatever. A lot of kids who struggle in the classroom excel at an extra curricular activity, so trying to give her the opportunities to find a club or activity she's excited about could real help. Some kids really benefit from the extra input of a mentor outside of school or their family.

You might be as well to check some books out of the library if she isnt interested in what she is currently reading. She will do better if its something that holds her attention.

Another good tip is yo watch films with the subtitles on so she sees how words look at the same time as hearing them said aloud.

As hard as it is, please try not to panic. All children are different and develop at different paces.

You may do the following already so apologies if it sounds patronising.

Do you read to her? Make sure you read lots of books to her. My son is 7 and we are reading the faraway tree books at the moment - mainly me reading. Apparently, when I was a tiny baby, my Dad used to read his Wilbur Smith books aloud to me😂 obviously, I couldn't understand the stories but I do believe it helped me as despite being dyslexic, my reading is good and I read for pleasure a lot.

Agree with PP about getting books she is interested in. When my son was learning, those bloody biff and chip books were mind numbing!

With maths, things like baking, simple adding up in the supermarket, 'can you get 6 apples and 4 bananas for me?' How many items is that? It all helps.

My son's handwriting was poor in Y1. Content was fine but his actual writing was shocking and I was convinced he would never be able to join up so it was legible. However, although it took time,he is now in Y3 and his writing is so much better. Neat, joined and readable.

My 6 year old son has just started year 2. We know he’s behind (‘working towards’ everything in his year 1 report) and he says he doesn’t like school. School don’t think there are any learning difficulties.

We’re just trying to encourage him. And reading to him, as mentioned above.

They’ve missed enormous chunks of their schooling so far. It’s hard to say how that will impact in the long term.

If he’s not academic then so be it. He has lots of personal qualities that I believe will help him make a success of his life. I am also remembering that my friend’s son didn’t learn to read until year 2 and he has a place to study English at Oxford. Not that I expect that for our son but it shows that all is not lost academically at this stage.

It's pretty usual for kids at that age to be varied in reading levels. They also hit plateaus.

What I might look out for is whether she is actually learning to read, or memorizing words. "Retaining" words is not really what you want, no one an memorize all the words. Some teaching methods use that approach though, because it gets them started reading quickly when they are small. But they will max out, sometimes quite quickly or usually by about grade 3 if they are good at memorizing.

Ideally what you want is the child learning to decode the words. They will begin to memorize high frequency words and also syllables by seeing them again and again, but without being able to decode they'll always be at a disadvantage for reading and spelling.

Some children are later, developmentally, learning how to decode though, it's often at six or even sometimes seven.

Plus, many kids won't learn to decode if they aren't taught explicitly.

Get her on reading eggs or "teach your monster to read". Some interactive things will engage her more